It kinda snowed then didn’t snow
this winter and kids went
sledding only once and then
when it should’ve already snowed
the sky dumped that 34° snow
heavy like cement
and it gathered on the trees
until limbs cracked like gunshots
and fell to the ground.
Some
only broke and bent, still
connected by magic and slight
xylem & phloem, the pith
exposed to the haunted world.
Now in May those limbs
are bowed to the ground
and flowering. They are
taking in the air, they are
taking in the sun. They go on,
eyes opening to a mid-spring frost
warning, their blossoms blasted by late
cold—but what is late, what is time,
now.
I learned the names of vaping products
from the litter in the parking lot at the park
where kids were playing baseball
in the freezing rain when their
coach kept them going out in the
icing drizzle, eight-year-olds toughening
up in case an F-150 isn’t enough,
pale maleness making them
run laps when they complained on that
tan grass surrounded by office buildings.
What
counts as a park anymore,
do we zone parking lots as open spaces yet,
do we count the snack wrappers
plastered to pavement as flowers yet—
the mechanical messiahnical gas station glowed
dull in the gray haze across the way as traffic
buzzed & sprayed, invisible routine eating
everything until all fuel is
gone,
devouring whatever you have until it starves.
Our new American flag above it,
electrical wires torn & frayed, flapping in the storm’s wind.
The bludgeoned blooms somewhere beyond
groaned farther into the ground,
into the soil’s always open palms.